KrytenKoro wrote:Not nearly the most appalling thing about this situation (the abuse of children is, and will continue to be, the most horrifying bit), but still flummoxing -- that gamergaters on KiA and twitter will simultaneously claim that gamergate does not defend CP or CP providers while, just a post above them (or even in their own post!) saying that they will defend CP and CP providers as a "free speech issue", and that it is "without precedent and assholish" to try to clamp down on the CP providers' "freedom of speech to create and provide CP". (Because the freedom of the children being exploited is apparently worth less than the freedom of speech to exploit them?) And the people posting that they will defend CP? "Guilded" and upvoted for it.

Let me be frank -- this is not merely an issue of "guilt by association", that it is some coincidence that one prominent GG member associated with CP providers and Nazis, and detractors are trying to tar them by saying "you should feel bad for engaging these people in conversation!". CP and Nazi hate speech is something that GG, en masse, will continuously and vociferously defend not only as "technically legal free speech" (which only Nazism technically is in a few countries, not worldwide, and CP is basically nowhere), but as something that should not even be condemned. So long as you support gamergate (and refuse to question any of the leaders of the movement, as people like lousypencilclip found out when they voiced dissent with Milo's transphobia and the GG movement's widespread embrace of it), there appears to literally be no abominable crime that the horde of Gamergaters will not only defend but encourage in you. It is this defense and encouragement of evil that speaks badly of gamergate, clearly and explicitly, yet GG members will continue to deny that any one of them will defend evil in the same breath as defending evil, instead strawmanning the criticism of what they've done as "ad hominem".

And in the next breath, will then claim that it is in fact FoldableHuman who should be found guilty of CP for finding these images on 8chan, writing an expose, and reporting them to the authorities -- when he should obviously (according to them) instead be reporting them to the mods of 8chan, who have said they know the material exists, will make no move to remove it unless it so blatantly breaks the law that they can no longer claim plausible deniability for themselves, and whose system is set up to sweep the infraction under the rug so that the offenders cannot be found and prosecuted. As if notifying the legal authorities of a crime makes you guilty of accessory to the crime in any sane legal system.

Furthermore, they will then claim that gamergate does not support harassment or doxxing, while simultaneously expressing support and encouragement for the harassment-and-doxxing board "baphomet".

The worst part of this is that this utter incoherence, continuous doublethink, and total denial of responsibility even when the individual themselves, not just the group, committed the crime -- is absolutely representative of gamergate as a whole. This is what you see of it, day in and day out, without even having to go "digging up dirt" on forums that detest Gamergate, like Gamerghazi. This is not obscure opinions posted on threads taken out of context, this is what Gamergaters (and KiA especially) put up on their front pages as their most popular threads and most lauded commentary. This is what they look up to.

Gamergate.

Is.

Fucking.

Evil.

And they're happy about it.

You're still on about this? The only reason this ever came up in the first place was because some anti-GGer needed a new way to try to paint GG as evil. It kind of tells you something about the strength of the anti-GG side when all they can do is try to slander the movement by association.

1) You didn't read the original article if you're painting it as "an anti-GGer trying to slander GG". GG was not mentioned once in the article. The article was, and remains, a criticism of 8chan, not Gamergate.2) You clearly didn't read a damn thing I've posted if you think I'm angry at GG for "association". I clearly stated what I'm criticizing -- that the self-admitted bastions of gamergate leap to defend the CP on 8chan, some even claiming that the "live-action" CP is actually beneficial to society.

Frankly, it's obvious that you're arguing in bad faith, so I'm not sure if it's worth responding to you any further.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

KrytenKoro wrote:1) You didn't read the original article if you're painting it as "an anti-GGer trying to slander GG". GG was not mentioned once in the article. The article was, and remains, a criticism of 8chan, not Gamergate.2) You clearly didn't read a damn thing I've posted if you think I'm angry at GG for "association". I clearly stated what I'm criticizing -- that the self-admitted bastions of gamergate leap to defend the CP on 8chan, some even claiming that the "live-action" CP is actually beneficial to society.

Frankly, it's obvious that you're arguing in bad faith, so I'm not sure if it's worth responding to you any further.

So, what's the sitrep? We already know they are all pedophile nazis, but what else are we forgetting?

KrytenKoro wrote:1) You didn't read the original article if you're painting it as "an anti-GGer trying to slander GG". GG was not mentioned once in the article. The article was, and remains, a criticism of 8chan, not Gamergate.2) You clearly didn't read a damn thing I've posted if you think I'm angry at GG for "association". I clearly stated what I'm criticizing -- that the self-admitted bastions of gamergate leap to defend the CP on 8chan, some even claiming that the "live-action" CP is actually beneficial to society.

Frankly, it's obvious that you're arguing in bad faith, so I'm not sure if it's worth responding to you any further.

So, what's the sitrep? We already know they are all pedophile nazis, but what else are we forgetting?

I never called them pedophile nazis (though funnily enough i can provide plenty of evidence that they cast those slurs at foldable human and even tried to get him sent to prison for whistleblowing on 8chan). I said that they were happy to defend these vile things as not only legal but "necessary" simply because these monsters paid them lip service.

I do not need to resort to pointing out who one chooses to associate with to show how much integrity they have. I can simply point out the words from their own mouth.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

The sanction bars the five editors from having anything to do with any articles covering Gamergate, but also from any other article about “gender or sexuality, broadly construed”.

Editors who had been pushing for the Wikipedia article to be fairer to Gamergate have also been sanctioned by the committee, but one observer warns that those sanctions have only hit “throwaway” accounts.

“No sanctions at all were proposed against any of Gamergate’s warriors, save for a few disposable accounts created specifically for the purpose of being sanctioned,” said Mark Bernstein, a writer and Wikipedia editor.

In contrast, he says, “by my informal count, every feminist active in the area is to be sanctioned. This takes care of social justice warriors with a vengeance — not only do the Gamergaters get to rewrite their own page (and Zoe Quinn’s, Brianna Wu’s, Anita Sarkeesian’s, etc); feminists are to be purged en bloc from the encyclopedia.”

'Look, sir, I know Angua. She's not the useless type. She doesn't stand there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.'

The sanction bars the five editors from having anything to do with any articles covering Gamergate, but also from any other article about “gender or sexuality, broadly construed”.

Editors who had been pushing for the Wikipedia article to be fairer to Gamergate have also been sanctioned by the committee, but one observer warns that those sanctions have only hit “throwaway” accounts.

“No sanctions at all were proposed against any of Gamergate’s warriors, save for a few disposable accounts created specifically for the purpose of being sanctioned,” said Mark Bernstein, a writer and Wikipedia editor.

In contrast, he says, “by my informal count, every feminist active in the area is to be sanctioned. This takes care of social justice warriors with a vengeance — not only do the Gamergaters get to rewrite their own page (and Zoe Quinn’s, Brianna Wu’s, Anita Sarkeesian’s, etc); feminists are to be purged en bloc from the encyclopedia.”

The decision is pretty bad, as it's basically "everyone who's being loud, go away and leave us alone", but it's not quite that bad -- for one, that was the initial proposal, not the final decision (though it's still pretty bad that the initial proposal was "throw everyone who was trying to keep wikipedia from being sued under the bus"), and they're not so much banned from editing articles on feminism, as just getting into fights with other editors on feminism articles. Basically, if anti-feminist vandals decide to vandalize another article, wikipedia has to find new dedicated editors (out of the 9% of female users it has) to give up their time to patrol this stuff and risk being thrown under the bus too.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

Btw What a big change from quartal to quartal. Sometimes I wonder if the GG people even realize that Anita for instance probably would raised much less money and had gotten much less publicity if they just did nothing.

PeteP wrote:Btw What a big change from quartal to quartal. Sometimes I wonder if the GG people even realize that Anita for instance probably would raised much less money and had gotten much less publicity if they just did nothing.

She also managed to produce only 2 videos in all of 2014 despite all that money, in comparison to 4 videos in 2013. These six videos cover three of the twelve topics she promised to cover. It makes you feel kind of bad for her backers. But don't worry, she's promising even more content this year.

PeteP wrote:Btw What a big change from quartal to quartal. Sometimes I wonder if the GG people even realize that Anita for instance probably would raised much less money and had gotten much less publicity if they just did nothing.

She also managed to produce only 2 videos in all of 2014 despite all that money, in comparison to 4 videos in 2013. These six videos cover three of the twelve topics she promised to cover. It makes you feel kind of bad for her backers. But don't worry, she's promising even more content this year.

PeteP wrote:Btw What a big change from quartal to quartal. Sometimes I wonder if the GG people even realize that Anita for instance probably would raised much less money and had gotten much less publicity if they just did nothing.

She also managed to produce only 2 videos in all of 2014 despite all that money, in comparison to 4 videos in 2013. These six videos cover three of the twelve topics she promised to cover. It makes you feel kind of bad for her backers. But don't worry, she's promising even more content this year.

PeteP wrote:Btw What a big change from quartal to quartal. Sometimes I wonder if the GG people even realize that Anita for instance probably would raised much less money and had gotten much less publicity if they just did nothing.

She also managed to produce only 2 videos in all of 2014 despite all that money, in comparison to 4 videos in 2013. These six videos cover three of the twelve topics she promised to cover. It makes you feel kind of bad for her backers. But don't worry, she's promising even more content this year.

PeteP wrote:Btw What a big change from quartal to quartal. Sometimes I wonder if the GG people even realize that Anita for instance probably would raised much less money and had gotten much less publicity if they just did nothing.

She also managed to produce only 2 videos in all of 2014 despite all that money, in comparison to 4 videos in 2013. These six videos cover three of the twelve topics she promised to cover. It makes you feel kind of bad for her backers. But don't worry, she's promising even more content this year.

And still delivering at a greater pace than most kickstarter projects.

But no, let's snark her for not meeting a schedule that she never said she would.

United States minimum wage is well below 20k per year, my debile friend.

Psst I will let you in on some of the dark secrets we call math. See take $158,922, take 44% the salary&wages portion of the kickstarter funds. The kickstarter ended 2,5 years ago so divide by 2.5 and you get 27970. But Anita isn't working alone so under 20k reached. What was your point?(One could make other points. Started as a Side project/giving talks should also give some money/donations in 2013 might increase the number somewhat - Things like that. But you didn't and simply demonstrated that you will be all smug without actually knowing what you are talking about

KrytenKoro wrote:And, once you look at the numbers, she's doing it below minimum wage.

And still delivering at a greater pace than most kickstarter projects.

But no, let's snark her for not meeting a schedule that she never said she would.

She said she needed $6000 for the first six videos, $26,000 for all twelve. She got $160,000 (several years' worth of minimum age). That's a pretty bad budget estimate.

As in, she was offering to do at at basically no wages to herself, and deliver the product to the public for free?

Yes, that is a pretty bad budget estimate, 'cause she should probably deserve wages for that kind of thing.

(Like, do you assume that she's just spending the money on a new car, and the videos appear fully-formed out of the aether or something, taking none of her time to make?)

If you have problems with the accuracy of her product, that's definitely something worth discussing (not here, since that's not relevant to Gamergate, but I'm fairly certain we have threads for it already). But come on, this is basic accounting and employment standards here -- basic math shouldn't be something it's possible to argue over.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

KrytenKoro wrote:And, once you look at the numbers, she's doing it below minimum wage.

And still delivering at a greater pace than most kickstarter projects.

But no, let's snark her for not meeting a schedule that she never said she would.

The majority of Kickstarter projects are fully delivered in under 2.5 years. Now, a *lot* of them do deliver late(75% by some metrics), but schedules do not usually run for several years for fulfillment. I have no strong opinions on this particular one, not being a backer, but "normal" for kickstarters is to deliver a few months late, because of inadequate planning/inexperience/etc. Most folks, though, do make a pretty good effort to deliver in a reasonable fashion.

Still, "delivering at a greater pace than most kickstarter projects" would seem to conflict with publicly available information. I'll grant you that not all content is equal, so comparing projects isn't always apples to apples, but as a rule, if a project takes 2+ years to deliver something to me, the company/individual involved go into my "never back this person again" category, and I assume they are not going to ever follow through.

KrytenKoro wrote:And, once you look at the numbers, she's doing it below minimum wage.

And still delivering at a greater pace than most kickstarter projects.

But no, let's snark her for not meeting a schedule that she never said she would.

The majority of Kickstarter projects are fully delivered in under 2.5 years. Now, a *lot* of them do deliver late(75% by some metrics), but schedules do not usually run for several years for fulfillment. I have no strong opinions on this particular one, not being a backer, but "normal" for kickstarters is to deliver a few months late, because of inadequate planning/inexperience/etc. Most folks, though, do make a pretty good effort to deliver in a reasonable fashion.

Still, "delivering at a greater pace than most kickstarter projects" would seem to conflict with publicly available information. I'll grant you that not all content is equal, so comparing projects isn't always apples to apples, but as a rule, if a project takes 2+ years to deliver something to me, the company/individual involved go into my "never back this person again" category, and I assume they are not going to ever follow through.

I stand corrected on that, then, but there's no indication that she's simply scamming her backers, as implied. From most reports I've seen, her backers are actually quite happy with the schedule, and a few have continued to donate even post-Kickstarter.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

KrytenKoro wrote:I stand corrected on that, then, but there's no indication that she's simply scamming her backers, as implied. From most reports I've seen, her backers are actually quite happy with the schedule, and a few have continued to donate even post-Kickstarter.

I never said she's scamming them. But I do think she is not working very hard and she is wasting much of their money.

KrytenKoro wrote:I stand corrected on that, then, but there's no indication that she's simply scamming her backers, as implied. From most reports I've seen, her backers are actually quite happy with the schedule, and a few have continued to donate even post-Kickstarter.

I never said she's scamming them. But I do think she is not working very hard and she is wasting much of their money.

Uh-huh. And when you made the comment about her releasing four videos in 2013 and only two in 2014, did you happen to watch the videos and compare stuff like production values, that type of thing?

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

KrytenKoro wrote:I stand corrected on that, then, but there's no indication that she's simply scamming her backers, as implied. From most reports I've seen, her backers are actually quite happy with the schedule, and a few have continued to donate even post-Kickstarter.

I never said she's scamming them. But I do think she is not working very hard and she is wasting much of their money.

Wasting is a relative term. I do not have any particular interest in her videos, and would no doubt find them a poor value. But then, I did not contribute to the kickstarter because of this lack of interest. Others may feel differently. If she's satisfying her donors, then there's not really much of a problem.

No more of a problem than any of a thousand other instances where people have different purchasing preferences from I, at any rate.

KrytenKoro wrote:Uh-huh. And when you made the comment about her releasing four videos in 2013 and only two in 2014, did you happen to watch the videos and compare stuff like production values, that type of thing?

Yes, I've watched all the videos. The production values are not particularly remarkable compared to hundreds of other Youtubers out there. It's her in front of a colored background, reading from a script, interspliced with gameplay footage. She didn't even create much of her footage, she took it from uncredited Let's Players (she was called out on this after her early videos, but neither acknowledged the mistake nor went back to add credits).

Wasting is a relative term. I do not have any particular interest in her videos, and would no doubt find them a poor value. But then, I did not contribute to the kickstarter because of this lack of interest. Others may feel differently. If she's satisfying her donors, then there's not really much of a problem.

No more of a problem than any of a thousand other instances where people have different purchasing preferences from I, at any rate.

I suppose so, it just seems like she could have done the same work in much less time for much less money. And even if you think her videos are a good thing, surely that would be a much better thing.

KrytenKoro wrote:Uh-huh. And when you made the comment about her releasing four videos in 2013 and only two in 2014, did you happen to watch the videos and compare stuff like production values, that type of thing?

Yes, I've watched all the videos. The production values are not particularly remarkable compared to hundreds of other Youtubers out there. It's her in front of a colored background, reading from a script, interspliced with gameplay footage. She didn't even create much of her footage, she took it from uncredited Let's Players (she was called out on this after her early videos, but neither acknowledged the mistake nor went back to add credits).

Not properly crediting players is kinda jerkish. It's polite to ask permission for reuse and give proper credit(unless they don't want it). But feh, most Let's Play videos are terrible anyway, and I'm afraid I don't get the appeal of the entire phenomonon.

Wasting is a relative term. I do not have any particular interest in her videos, and would no doubt find them a poor value. But then, I did not contribute to the kickstarter because of this lack of interest. Others may feel differently. If she's satisfying her donors, then there's not really much of a problem.

No more of a problem than any of a thousand other instances where people have different purchasing preferences from I, at any rate.

I suppose so, it just seems like she could have done the same work in much less time for much less money. And even if you think her videos are a good thing, surely that would be a much better thing.

Oh, probably. I have no particular feelings on good or evil things, though. They're just a thing. I doubt the world would be much different had they not existed. And MANY things could be done in less time for less money. How much money you get isn't a function of what you need, but your publicity, and the percentage of people you reach that want it.

leady wrote:you do have to admire her genius though, thats $600,000 in 2.5 years through basic media manipulation and perfect timing.

The cause even protects her from the guilt by association of being involved with alleged scam artists too. I wish I'd have thought of it!

The oatmeal is currently getting ludicrous amounts of money for a reasonably mediocre looking game, simply by virtue of media reach as well. That isn't to say that getting that kind of reach is easy. A simple explanation is not the same as ease of execution. Building a massive fan base takes some persistence, regardless of how exactly you go about it. It certainly does have value, that can be converted into cash if you find the right pitch, but building up enough fan base to be relevant in the first place is the tough bit.

KrytenKoro wrote:Uh-huh. And when you made the comment about her releasing four videos in 2013 and only two in 2014, did you happen to watch the videos and compare stuff like production values, that type of thing?

Yes, I've watched all the videos. The production values are not particularly remarkable compared to hundreds of other Youtubers out there.

Not compared to other youtubers, compared to her earlier work. You compared her 2013 numbers versus her 2014 numbers as if she should by default be meeting her 2013 numbers, plus extra with the money.

I suppose so, it just seems like she could have done the same work in much less time for much less money.

Based on what? I mean, we both recognize she does stuff beyond the videos, so that's going to cut into her time. Using the uncredited video is definitely a jerk move, but it seems like if she didn't do that, it would just take her more time and money, so it seems weird to complain that she's taking to long while also recognizing that she's trying to cut corners.

If we were talking about her getting all that money to make a potato salad, there would clearly be an issue of "too much money/time is being used" (and that guy ended up organizing the money for charity initiatives), but...unless we actually have some media expert making a statement on how much money it would cost to make the materials she has made, and verified that any alleged excess money isn't going somewhere entirely reasonable, like femininst charity drives, the whole topic honestly seems like pointing out a number in unclear context and making woo woo noises. If some sort of smoking gun actually turns up (like her using the other youtubers' footage), that's worthy of criticism, but as far as I'm aware she hasn't been seen with a brand new Rolls Royce or anything -- so it comes off more as making "dig up dirt on Anita for the sake of digging up dirt" the goal.

So...yeah, it pisses me off that she snatched someone else's work and hasn't even fixed it yet. That makes me pissed at her as a person, though, since it wouldn't by default detract from her message. As far as the money goes -- if she had more skill or experience in what she's doing, she probably could have gotten it done faster with a much smaller budget, sure, but she is who she is, and there wasn't anyone else with greater skill trying to do the same work.

you do have to admire her genius though, thats $600,000 in 2.5 years through basic media manipulation and perfect timing.

The cause even protects her from the guilt by association of being involved with alleged scam artists too. I wish I'd have thought of it!

$600,000 is kind of a piddling number to run a business for 2.5 years, come off it. You're basically just spouting baseless conspiracy theories at this point, and ignoring any sense of real-world proportion.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

A business yes, but as far as I know no such thing exists. One lady, a video camera, an xbox with a pile of games and a trustfund boyfriend isn't really a large overhead enterprise I also wonder how much shes taken in speaking, appearances etc too - I suspect it beats working at Wallmart by a factor of 10

A business yes, but as far as I know no such thing exists. One lady, a video camera, an xbox with a pile of games and a trustfund boyfriend isn't really a large overhead enterprise

...you do realize she is actually attempting to research what she's talking about so that her work is actually usable in academic circles, etc., right? She's not just getting in front of her webcam and rattling off her first impressions.

leady wrote:I also wonder how much shes taken in speaking, appearances etc too - I suspect it beats working at Wallmart by a factor of 10

You wonder, you suspect, etc.

You seem to be very eager to cast aspersions without a single piece of actual evidence.

Maybe your trolling wouldn't be so obvious if you actually researched some of your claims before making woo woo noises.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

KrytenKoro wrote:So...yeah, it pisses me off that she snatched someone else's work and hasn't even fixed it yet. That makes me pissed at her as a person, though, since it wouldn't by default detract from her message. As far as the money goes -- if she had more skill or experience in what she's doing, she probably could have gotten it done faster with a much smaller budget, sure, but she is who she is, and there wasn't anyone else with greater skill trying to do the same work.

Yeah, the nabbing other folks work does irk me. But I can't be bothered to care about precise numbers of videos delivered. If it's enough for her customers, then cheers, what's the problem?

you do have to admire her genius though, thats $600,000 in 2.5 years through basic media manipulation and perfect timing.

The cause even protects her from the guilt by association of being involved with alleged scam artists too. I wish I'd have thought of it!

$600,000 is kind of a piddling number to run a business for 2.5 years, come off it. You're basically just spouting baseless conspiracy theories at this point, and ignoring any sense of real-world proportion.

$600k is actually pretty good in terms of youtube videos and what not. I would not describe it as piddling. Not all businesses are equal, and for the industry she's in, she seems to be doing quite a bit above average.

This isn't inherently a bad thing. Someone making money doesn't make them evil. It just makes them successful.

A business yes, but as far as I know no such thing exists. One lady, a video camera, an xbox with a pile of games and a trustfund boyfriend isn't really a large overhead enterprise I also wonder how much shes taken in speaking, appearances etc too - I suspect it beats working at Wallmart by a factor of 10

Feminist Frequency is registered as a non-profit. As I understand, they have two employees: Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh, who does most of the writing and video editing, I think. These are the two people named on Feminist Frequency's website.

I imagine their non-salary costs are not very high though. They basically need a good camera, a TV, one of each console (at least the newer ones, older consoles can be emulated), a good PC that can be used for both games, video editing, and research, and a few hundred games. All told it should be much less than $100k in capital expenses, and the whole thing can be run out of a spare bedroom or garage. So yeah, she's no minimum wage worker.

A business yes, but as far as I know no such thing exists. One lady, a video camera, an xbox with a pile of games and a trustfund boyfriend isn't really a large overhead enterprise I also wonder how much shes taken in speaking, appearances etc too - I suspect it beats working at Wallmart by a factor of 10

Feminist Frequency is registered as a non-profit. As I understand, they have two employees: Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh, who does most of the writing and video editing, I think. These are the two people named on Feminist Frequency's website.

For what it's worth, the numbers I've seen claim five people as being paid salary for the project. Without anyone actually demonstrating some form of embezzlement, though, the whole "scandal" remains woo woo noises.

Like I said -- I'm pissed at Anita for snatching footage without crediting it. That doesn't mean I'm prepared to go on a witch hunt, or credulously buy any accusations of malfeasance that come without a shred of proof.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

My criticisms with regards to finances have less to do with Anita Sarkeesian, and more to do with Kickstarter and the "crowdfunding culture" in general. I'm not very comfortable criticizing her on those fronts, when practically everyone who was even mildly-successful at Kickstarter suffers from roughly the same sins.

Patreon has a better model for finances IMO. Granted, it didn't exist when Sarkeesian started her project, so I can't criticize her for failing to use Patreon. But the explicit "month-to-month" model of Patreon sets expectations much better, and provides the "patrons" the ability to cut-off funding should a project fail to make progress.

Internet-age crowdsourced funding is very new. The level of $5 to $10 singular contributions is way too low, and is probably difficult to manage.

KnightExemplar wrote:My criticisms with regards to finances have less to do with Anita Sarkeesian, and more to do with Kickstarter and the "crowdfunding culture" in general. I'm not very comfortable criticizing her on those fronts, when practically everyone who was even mildly-successful at Kickstarter suffers from roughly the same sins.

Patreon has a better model for finances IMO. Granted, it didn't exist when Sarkeesian started her project, so I can't criticize her for failing to use Patreon. But the explicit "month-to-month" model of Patreon sets expectations much better, and provides the "patrons" the ability to cut-off funding should a project fail to make progress.

Internet-age crowdsourced funding is very new. The level of $5 to $10 singular contributions is way too low, and is probably difficult to manage.

They're for different things, really. Kickstarter is explicitly about funding a singular effort with a goal, while Patreon is very much for ongoing things. Both are perfectly fine, depending on your goals, but in practice, Kickstarter gets way more press/traffic, so if you're in doubt, you should *usually* go with that. There's also indiegogo, which is very open ended, but you're essentially not going to get any free publicity from it.

Mostly, crowdsourcing works pretty well, but you do get the occasional ludicrously terrible project or scam.

I'm extremely happy that Feminist Frequency has had a surge of financial support. The audit shows that Sarkeesian and McIntosh's salary for running their non-profit organisation was $16,142.50 each, and that production of all 2014 videos totalled $31,915. With the surge in donations in the past few months, it means for 2015 they can boost admin budget to $100,000 (i.e. take on a couple more employees) and content creation budget eightfold to $260,000 (plus ideally deliver a few more promised Kickstarter TvWiVG videos). I don't think anything as publicity-boosting on a Gamergate scale would feasibly happen again this year, so this might be a one-time only budget they have to work with, but as springboards go, Gamergate was one hell of a boost for promoting their message.

Yeesh. Looks like somebody's struck a nerve. LOL'd at @sparkatronable: "Just leave games the fuck alone!" (which, incidentally is the voice I have in my head every time I hear phrases like "attention-seeking" or "manipulative" attributed to her in place of any form of actual criticism).

So I came accross this today. About wikipedia's role in gamergate. Interestingly, I found this article via a Dutch newspaper. It's heartening to see the main stream media take note.

I was wondering if people here had any insight on this. I haven't really followed gamergate too well, I must admit. And it's probably a few weeks worth of reading to form my own opinion on everything that's happened on wikipedia. I don't want to invest that kind of time.

If these allegations are true I may have to reconsider my donations to wikipedia.

It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist- Bernard Woolley in Yes, Prime Minister

Diadem wrote:So I came accross this today. About wikipedia's role in gamergate. Interestingly, I found this article via a Dutch newspaper. It's heartening to see the main stream media take note.

I was wondering if people here had any insight on this. I haven't really followed gamergate too well, I must admit. And it's probably a few weeks worth of reading to form my own opinion on everything that's happened on wikipedia. I don't want to invest that kind of time.

If these allegations are true I may have to reconsider my donations to wikipedia.

TLDR version: That article was released based on the first draft of the decision, rather than the final draft, but the final draft still focuses (though to not as quite a severe degree) on the "silence anyone making noise" behavior the author complained about, rather than "remove editors blatantly acting in bad faith and organizing harassment, while showing the smallest mercy for those who, yes, went overboard but were still acting to prevent the wiki from libeling anyone."

Read spoiler for more details.

Spoiler:

It's not totally accurate, but the main thrust is, indeed, the same. It's based on the original draft of the decision, which was written by three arbcoms who are also wikipediocracy users, a site that has a hard-on for shouting at "meanieheads", and it shows. The original draft proposed telling one of the admins that had scrupulously followed the rules that she had to be careful, because it could give the impression of bias, proposed topic-bans through bans for each of the five editors gamergate had targeted (including one, TarainDC, who was the sole female of the group and surprise-surprise the only one getting sanctioned for nothing more than not assuming good faith on those being disruptive on the talk pages -- basically, for not being o'erweeningly polite), proposed a ban for Ryulong, who has a tendency to go overboard and try to own pages after vandals appear on them, and proposed a single ban for TheDevil'sAdvocate, who purposefully goes from controversy to controversy to try and stir them up, often obstructing or causing to explode projects aimed at attracting more women to wikipedia. Of note also is that the arbcom only had a sole woman (who immediately got doxxed and harassed by gamergate), something that Jimmy Wales himself was unhappy about. It also did not admit that any of the offsite harassment campaigns setup by GG wikipedia editors had happened, and had no sanctions for the editor known to have started them.

THAT's what the article's pissed about, and what Arbcom keeps trying to claim it was irresponsible for anyone to read into. Sure, it's not the final draft, but there is such a thing as setting the tone (especially when the eyes of the world are on you), and those three arbitrators consistently argued for punishing those who valued the quality/legality policies more than the civility policy, and being forgiving of those who were blatantly editing in bad faith, or leading harassment campaigns. Basically, that if they could show plausible deniability for offsite activity, they absolutely chose to.

Basically, people are more angry at those three arbitrators than the final decision. The final decision ended up topic-banning three of the "five horsemen", warning the other two (including, again, TaraInDC), and completely banning Ryulong. TDA (who again, the arbitrators recognized as purposefully stirring up shit as his long-time goal on the wiki) was given stringent restrictions just short of the siteban Ryulong got. Four GG editors who had even before the decision been found to have violated the rules in a massive way retained their topic bans, another GG editor was topic-banned, and the editor who organized the harassment of the "horsemen" was topic-banned after he was added to the proposal.

So, from the Arbcom's point of view, they handled this neutrally because they punished similar amounts of people on both sides with similar punishments. They are convinced that new, informed editors will happily move in to take over the article and discuss it civilly, despite a similar, earlier Arbcom proceeding being specifically about the overwhelming disruption to a project aimed at getting the number of women on wikipedia over 10%.

The community, by and large, especially the longterm editors and admins, isn't buying it, as they are confused by ArbCom's refusal to even admit that off-site harassment has happened, and see the decision as "ArbCom will not have your back if bad-faith editors trying to get libel onto the encyclopedia organize real-world harassment of you until you say something rude to them," and don't understand how ArbCom expects any experienced editors to come in and ensure that wikipedia's rules for quality (or even the rules for civility that the case was decided on) are followed if being so much as a feminist (as we saw with the single female arbitrator, who even voted as GG wanted on several of the proposals!) will get you targeted and harassed until you break and are banned.

Also, annoyance that ArbCom threw their hands in the air and didn't suggest any changes to policy that could prevent the obvious (and self-admitted, by KiA) gaming of the system that happened.

From the elegant yelling of this compelling dispute comes the ghastly suspicion my opposition's a fruit.

Here is Wikipedia's official (I think) response to reaction to the ArbCom's decision. I've not been following this drama closely, and I doubt this decision will actually end anything. New people will just come in with the same views and the fight will start all over. I don't know what the Gamergate article is like right now, but I would not recommend using it as a source at this time on the principle that it's currently in the middle of an ongoing edit war and not likely to be impartial or even self-consistent. This it a topic that you'll just have to research yourself.